The old B17 had a version of a Sperry autopilot, and it worked very good. A2A Simulations has a very nice and working B17 in P3D with a working Sperry autopilot. So, if someone believes that we have to manually flying the DC-6 because “it’s more realistic” in a 4 or 5 hours flight, is completely wrong. And the beautiful working PMDG DC-6 Sperry autopilot is completely broken since 6 months, Asobo fault or not.
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Yes it certainly is. And there is always one customer who will tell you it’s just fine if you fly the whole flight by hand. Even PMDG put this up as a workaround on their forum.
Of course this ignores the fact that historically these planes took 2 or more pilots to fly safely. Thats the whole point of the gyropilot…to free up the pilot to do other things will in flight. If you are adjusting everything without the AFE’s help, flying without an autopilot is not an option.
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Absolutely. The capabilities and modes of the gyropilot are clearly documented in the flight manual and my DC-6 does all that. I agree that it could have been slightly smoother but to expect a 70 years old aircraft to fly a perfectly straight line on GP/AP is unrealistic. Younger aircraft with similarily working autopilots in my club behave just like that. Tracking a VOR radial is not flying towards a point in a straight line, it works by constantly centering the CDI needle if it deviates. This will always result in a wiggly line. The recent update made this behave strangely, it turns towards the radial, overshoots it, then turns back and overshoots again.
My assumption after several tests is that when you draw a line from waypoint A to waypoint B in the GNS you obviously get a direction that is something like 314.659394665 degrees. I assume that the sim rounds this to either 315° or one digit after the decimal while the CDI rounds to another value. The consequence was that we were always banking a bit. For some reasons some people saw a stronger banking effect than others. I personally flew almost a straight line in localizer mode and so did the guys at PMDG, they just couldn’t replicate it. If you want a perfectly straight flight you need to use the gyro mode and adjust manually. It’s just how this system works.
Regarding the turning issue with the GNS at present: As I said above I assume a rounding issue with the CDI. I found that if I follow the magenta line and select OBS in the GNS and then center the CDI manually with the mouse in the cockpit I am back to the almost straight line that I have seen since release. If I use any hotkeys, hardware binds etc I have the problem.
I’ll add that I am on the AAU beta. The continuous changes made to the sim may influence all that.
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That swaying left to right and right to left on an autopilot course is something that I haven’t just seen in the DC-6 too. It’s a general thing for MSFS with quite a few addon aircraft.
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It’ll be fixed in due time. Pretty new custommer but after “feeling” the quality of the addons is exemplary in MFS. They clearly are passionate and don’t rush things, having to wait a bit/much longer is the downside of that.
Lets also not forget PMDG i believe has more advanced planes in MFS then any other dev i believe as well as at least 2 lined up. That must take immense resources and time.
And with how MFS updates go every dev is behind at some point, but they will catch up. Lets enjoy X-Mas and have the devs have some quality time and see what next year brings eh.
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So this is still a thing then? I didn’t have this problem for the first few months, but then it started happening. This was last winter.
I flew the Six yesterday and had the oscillating AP whist using the (old) default GNS 430.
We should expect an update from PMDG soon. Rob announced a few days ago that they were waiting on the AAU1 release, which has now happened.
I’m assuming the update will make the new GNS 430 the default unit and will address the AP issues.
The new update is out! Incorporates the new WT GNS. About to go fly it!
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LOC AP mode completely fails to track a VOR now, for me ( this is with the GPS removed ). Beforehand it was at least trying, even if it was going all over the sky rather than just following a radial.
Thanks for HU. I’ve been looking forward to this 
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GPS plan flown perfect with GP. Upon activating approach on GNS430, all navigation failed. This was GPS, VLOC, back to GPS, with Localizer and Approach modes. I keep reading on PMDG forums that switching on a EFB from GNS to old school and back to GNS solves this. Same if the flight initialized to old school. Switch to GNS then back to old school and it will work. Will try it out in the next couple of days. I posted on PMDG forums. All in all, pleasant flight, but the entire approach was flown by hand. Analogue CDI still shows you guidance for you to fly it manually, just no GP. Keep sharing experiences, pilots!
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Which 430 are you using/have installed? The Marketplace WT530/430 or the PMS530 (or both, therefore a lot of things will likely be broken in that regard (AP Nav)).
It seems to me, based on what I’ve read from developers, I’d use the PMS530/430, and uninstall the WT530, until PMDG says it’s totally fixed (and even then it might still be bugged). And make sure you’ve got the latest PMS530 (.54 I think?)
I haven’t used PMS since I got WT. Also, the WT GNS is now the default baked-in GNS for the sim, I don’t know why anyone would use the PMS one anymore. It was great before the WT guys made a superior GNS unit. Also, PMDG says that their GP logic is currently BASED on the WT unit (read Randazzo’s latest DC-6 update).
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People who want to use planes like the RV-10. Unfortunately, as you know the G3X is not compatible with the Marketplace WT530, hence those people who like to fly with these and the Milviz 310 and PC-6 are up the creek at the moment. I imagine this will change over the next few weeks or months, but, it’s where we’re at at the moment.
It sounds like the DC-6 might need a little more work to shake out some bugs.
why put mixture in auto lean prior to hitting starter?
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Because that was in the tutorial video. Haven’t flown this one for a long time, so no further clue!
Now that AAIU is out and WT is part of the base platform I didn’t think you could uninstall it?
There is a seperate marketplace version which is presumably for older aircraft which haven’t yet been updated.
Technically you should start in idle/cutoff, but MSFS doesn’t like that.
Also noticed since update the AFE over boosts the engines on takeoff every time when using realistic settings in tablet …
I’m an old air force retired flight engineer so I pick up on the little mistakes like mixtures in auto lean. With C54’s and C118’s that was a no no before the engine was started as you put the mixture in after the engine was running.
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